A photography blog to help me on my journey

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m currently taking a “Photographer in Training” course through a local studio called The Right Light Studios (you can check them out here: http://www.rightlightstudios.com). My instructor wanted me to get a certain number of shoots in by the end of April, but not just any shoot. Since I would really love to focus my photography on maternity, birth and newborn sessions, that’s what he wanted me to shoot. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a lot of pregnant people off the top of my head to call up and ask if I can take photos of their bellies. The conversation with my instructor went a little like this: “I: Do you know anyone that is pregnant or just had a baby? Me: No. There are a lot of moms at Gracie’s school that are pregnant, though. I: Have you approached them and asked if they would like some maternity pictures done? Me: No. I: Why not? Me: It’s a little out of my comfort zone, I guess! I: Make it be in your comfort zone. You need the pictures.” Ok, so I guess I need to be putting myself out there a little more! Lol.

That being said, I took his advice one day and approached a teacher at Gracie’s school who was obviously expecting and asked if she had had maternity pictures done or if she wanted some done. She was super excited because she hadn’t had any done yet, but wanted them done, and just didn’t know how to go about finding someone. Wahoo! I guess putting yourself out there isn’t so bad after all!;-) I was so excited to have some new clients and Krista was so excited to have their pictures done.

We met up at beautiful Lake Poway in Poway, CA for their shoot. I took one of my classmates along to help me out that day, and we had a great time. Krista and Tim are so cute, and I can’t wait to meet their little bundle of love, Gwendolyn.

I have been neglecting the blog as of lately. A lot of things going on around here, keeping us extremely busy! I did manage to get our “Just Us” pictures done (on the last day…again!) for April and wanted to share them. My 5 year old Gracie girl actually took the ones of me with Samuel, and she did an excellent job! My husband took some quick shots of me with Gracie at bedtime and I completely love them;-) I so hope they cherish these pictures when they get older as much as I do!

I’m really late getting this one up, but of course, I waited until the very last day of March to get my personal challenge done. I did that on purpose though, not only because it was Easter Sunday, but because I knew we would all be together. It proved to be a much harder task to get Samuel to sit still this time because we shot at my parent’s house and all he wanted to do was play with Grandpa! Needless to say, I’ll have to try this without Grandpa and Grandma present this month;-) Some of these aren’t the greatest, technically, but I love them!

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but aside from trying to start my own photography business and running a household of 4, I also run a daycare out of my home each weekday. Yes. I answered your question before you even asked it…I am very busy! I have always wanted to be a hands on mom and take part in my babes daily lives. In order to be home with them everyday, I decided to open my home to a few other children as well. At a few points, I had 5 kids under the age of 4 at my house on a daily basis! Right now, I have my Gracie who is 5 1/2, Ana is 2 1/2, Natalie is 2 and our little “Bub” is just 2. There are definitely some fights, but all in all, they love each other and love to have fun together.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting a very happy and loving couple who are expecting twin girls in the not so distant future! My classmate, Ben, works with this mama and introduced us via email to set up a shoot and I am so very grateful he did! I could tell how much in love these two are within the first 5 minutes of meeting them. These two baby girls are going to be so blessed to have them as their parents! I am also so thankful to them for bearing with me on my first time ever using a lighting setup instead of natural light…it was definitely a challenge for me;-) That’s what this journey is all about though. Enjoy!

This was a really fun session for me. JJ’s dad is my cousin whom I hadn’t seen in 12 years because he’d moved away from our hometown in Iowa when we were juniors in high school. Fast forward all that time and we are now living about an hour away from each other in California. I had never met his wife or her son, but contacted her about doing some maternity pictures for them before she had the baby. We were supposed to do pictures on March 9th, but JJ had other plans and decided he was ready to join the world on February 16th! So on March 2nd, I made the trip to see my cousin and meet his beautiful family! So. Much. Fun.

As you know, my first “official” maternity, birth and newborn shoots were done for my friend, Cristin and her little guy, Seamus, back in July and August. She asked me if we could do monthly pictures of Seamus the whole first year so she could make something with them after he turns 1, and of course I said “Absoutely!”. I will soon be doing his 7 month session and I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by! I wanted to share a few of the pictures I did for his 5 and 6 month sessions with you. Enjoy this handsome little man!

I’ve been thinking lately that I need to be in front of the camera more. Not because I particularly love it, but because I want my kids to have pictures they can look back on and see me as well as everybody else. Here goes…

A while back, I shared the maternity pictures I did for my friend, Amber. I am really playing catch up at this point because she had her sweet boy, Jayceon, right before Thanksgiving and I am just now sharing the pictures. I was able to snuggle him and practice my skills on my 2nd newborn session ever the first weekend in December. Our first meeting was a little rushed because I had to get back to my kids (I have an in-home daycare full time), so while I got to do a lot of snuggling, there were no pictures taken that day. So we set up a 2nd session, and it went remarkably well! Jayceon, a.k.a. JJ, was a little angel and slept the whole time I was there taking pictures. I was pretty proud of myself for capturing these adorable memories for Amber to cherish!